A delightful mishmash of waffle about my exciting life, bizarre opinions on the great philosophical matters of our day, and plenty of Zionist ranting for good measure.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Back in TLV

After a 10-week hiatus, I am finally getting back on the horse and blogging again. I was just thinking about what to write, as I sit at Ruppin Villas, with the BBC news on in the background. Lo and behold, Lize Ducet is hosting a debate on - get this - "Do the Palestinians have a partner for peace in Netanyahu?"

The delightful Abdul Bari Atwan is peddling the standard Palestinian line. I always think he looks like a sleepy hound dog. He speaks in that totally stereotypical Arabic-English voice, throwing in plenty of quavering emotional crap. Hilariously he makes a slip and says Israel could have dealt with "moderates like Arafat... I mean Abbas"!

Most of the debate is a yawn-fest in which the British and American folks on the panel try to stick to blandishments, whilst Bari Fatwa peddles his nonsense and the Israeli guy, Saul Zadka of some unheard-of agency, and formerly of Ha'aretz, plods along with his heavily accented English and blunt, boring counter-arguments. He fails to question very much of the others' statements, for example he leaves unchallenged such phrases as "Netanyahu is opposed to a two-state solution" and "Israel's government coalition is extreme right-wing."

Then the debate switches to a discussion on the worldwide recession and even Bari Fatwa has something reasonable to say, whilst the dumb Israeli sits twiddling his thumbs and looking like a one-trick pony. This is the time to point out that Israel's banks largely avoided sub-prime, that Israel is slowing down but is going to have a much milder recession, and this shows that Netanyahu's policies in the past as Finance Minister, and his suggestion that the best way to cut a deal with the Palestinians is through "economic peace" is a realistic option. Instead he gets a laugh from the panel by meekly agreeing with Bari Fatwa that Gordon Brown is a pillock.

Useless bloody Zionists.

Meanwhile, a bit earlier on in the trip, I read an excellent piece by the wonderful David Horovitz of the Jerusalem Post. Note the references to Saeb Erekat's recent interview on Al-Jazeera. Want to know if we have a partner for peace with the "moderates" of Fatah? Really think there is a workable solution? Wake up and smell the white phosphorus. Here is a choice morsel of Erekat's interview:

"Yasser Arafat said to Clinton defiantly: 'I will not be a traitor. Someone will come to liberate it after 10, 50, or 100 years. Jerusalem will be nothing but the capital of the Palestinian state, and there is nothing underneath or above the Haram Al-Sharif except for Allah.' That is why Yasser Arafat was besieged, and that is why he was killed unjustly."

Let that sink in a bit. Arafat denied that the Temple Mount had any Jewish connotations, therefore was unwilling to concede even the idea of Palestinian sovereignty on the ground with theoretical Jewish sovereignty of what was underneath. Erekat and Abbas concur with this, and Erekat even suggests Arafat was KILLED by Israel for this. The full interview is translated here at MEMRI.

We will never have peace with the Palestinians, unless we want a civil war of our own when the frummers turn on an Israeli government for allowing the destruction of what is left of the Temple.

So I find myself in this bizarre position where the more time I spend here in TLV, the more I think about aliyah, love the lifestyle, and wonder what I am doing in London, but then I see things like that and think I would be a better Zionist by being back in Blighty defending Israel properly. In either event, do I really want to spend the next few years wheeler-dealing, or should I be doing something more meaningful? Some big questions...